“You could have gone . . . any time. Yet you have stayed in my castle behind locked doors, playing the prisoner. Why?” I shook my head in denial. Not any time. I had to learn the words. You gave them to me. “I gave them to you?” he repeated, dumbfounded. You taught me to read. You taught me to write. “This power is new?” His voice lifted in surprise. The power is not new. The words are new. My mother took the words away when she died. She took my voice away so I wouldn’t hurt anyone else.
